Its extremely difficult to avoid getting caught by a laser gun. The beam does not extend very wide and as a result, will not get seen by the detector until you are literally getting it pointed at you. Fortunetly, laser guns are useless in situations where the officer is monitoring traffic from the opposite direction while he is moving. So moving cars will still use regular k band. If you have noticed, Olathe and Gardner will just sit and wait while aiming the laser gun at you, then jump in and give chase. Doesnt help you one bit in those situations.

Its extremely difficult to avoid getting caught by a laser gun. The beam does not extend very wide and as a result, will not get seen by the detector until you are literally getting it pointed at you. Fortunetly, laser guns are useless in situations where the officer is monitoring traffic from the opposite direction while he is moving. So moving cars will still use regular k band. If you have noticed, Olathe and Gardner will just sit and wait while aiming the laser gun at you, then jump in and give chase. Doesnt help you one bit in those situations.

Thanks for that info, my detector goes off all of the time but I very rarely see an officer so I wasn't sure if it works or not.

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If it has KA, you're 90% covered. My X50 rarely shows a laser hit, even when I'm in the KC area. Unfortunately, the only decent protection against laser is a jammer. All the detector does is let you know you've been hit.

Be careful with KA too though. I don't depend on it unless I'm using someone else as radar bait. That way you pick up the instant-on when the cop is hitting the other guy.

The key to making a radar detector effective is understanding what it's telling you, and knowing your location. There are three bands of radar that you will encounter while driving

X Band: usually used in automatic door openers and security alarms sensors around buildings. It's rarely used by a police officer, very rarely.

K Band: This is the one that you will encounter the most as its used in a lot of doors and other sensors around town. It is also frequently used by police across the country. So it can be hard to differentiate between junk and police. However, when you get a really strong K band hit is more than likely a police radar.

Ka Band: As far as I know this is not used by anything other than police. So if your radar picks up on this signal you better pay attention.

Laser: Pretty much when it goes off, you just got your speed recorded. It is possible to pick it up when it hits a car near you though.

Radar guns are just radio frequency emitters, and a radar detector is just an antenna tuned to those frequencies. So sometimes, depending on which way the radar source is aimed you may pick up on it ar different times and different strength. It really all depends on the surrounding area.

The knowing your location part comes into remembering what the normal amount of hits your radar picks up at a given area. So if you're traveling along your daily route to work and suddenly you get an alert at a location that's normally silent you should take note.

I have a Valentine one which tells me which direction to signal came from and the number of signals it has picked up. I can't drive anywhere without it now, it has save my butt many many times